Kulesh Musical Components

I had experimented with certain alloys and from time to time we would pour this, weld that. I also had access to a centrifugal foundry (through Anti-Friction Products). This is a process where molten metal is spun in a rotation barrel mechanism. It is hollow on the inside and spinning and there are orifices on the end to pour the molten metal into. (It is sealed off except for a small opening.) What happens in the centrifugal process is, the metal is spun to the outside of the barrel-shaped thing. There is a liner to the appropriate size of what you want in diameter, and you regulate the thickness of the metal by how much you pour into the mechanism. These things are spun. Once it has stopped spinning and cooled down, it comes out like a piece of pipe.

However, all the impurities and the gases in the metal have been forced to the inside by the sheer weight of the metal being forced to the outside. So you wind up with a product in which the ingredients in the metal have been mixed much better than they would be in a sand casting. You wind up with a much purer alloy with a denser molecular structure, and more gas- and impurity-free, because this object then has to be machined out and all the impurities on the inside turn into garbage or waste products. We know today that banjos like high quality metal. When we started, we didn't know if they wanted just metal, good metal or whatever, because we were after a tonal quality, not a strength-quality, or some other thing. We wanted a sound. Hence, we found out that they like this.

Now, this process that I have just described, and the resulting product, has come to be known as the "10-hole tone ring." The 10-hole is probably the first new tone ring on the market for many years. We don't preach it as a "pre-war ring" because it's not. The formulation on it is mine. It's not the 20-hole ring or anything else. It's also the most expensive casting method you can utilize.

The Rich and Taylor Banjo company that is just starting up in Nashville put a couple of these tone rings into their prototype banjos and have met with instant success with them. A lot of the professional banjo players here have been really pleased with them, according to Greg Rich. There are only eighty of them out there as I write this. Janet Davis has been selling them, and Rich & Taylor plans to use them in some of their banjos.

This whole business has been exciting. There are some other people I want to mention, Jim Burlile has been of great assistance to me throughout the years, and so has Doug Moore, who lives over in Imperial, and is a super banjo player. Burlile has lent technical assistance at different times -- tolerances and configurations and what not. From the very beginning, Doug Moore was fascinated in what we were trying to do, and I have used Doug as the official banjo tester, demonstrator and player. Doug Moore made the observation that one of the characteristics of the 10-hole ring is that the volume doesn't diminish as you go up the neck. It remains constant while on most banjos the sound will diminish. This one does not diminish.